The UK has led the way in the crackdown, experts say, with judges recently refusing an appeal against multi-year sentences for climate activists who blocked a motorway bridge in east London. The three-year jail terms for Marcus Decker and Morgan Trowland earlier this year are thought to be the longest handed out by a British judge for non-violent protest.
Michel Forst, the UN rapporteur on environmental defenders since June last year, described the situation in the UK as “terrifying”. He added that other countries were “looking at the UK examples with a view to passing similar laws in their own countries, which will have a devastating effect for Europe”.
He added: “I’m sure that there is European cooperation among the police forces against these kinds of activities. My concern is that when [governments] are calling these people eco-terrorists, or are using new forms of vilifications and defamation … it has a huge impact on how the population may perceive them and the cause for which these people are fighting. It is a huge concern for me.”
Very concerning. But it shows that governments are triggered and hit at a vulnerable spot by these protests. They know that it is very hard for them to please the activists and pass sufficient climate legislation in the short term, so it is apparent that protests will continue and even increase. Also they don’t want to appear “weak” by giving in (which is completely stupid of course). So with these harsh sentences, they show us that they are afraid and want to stop these protests before they get too large
The glueing on streets, throwing stuff on glass covered paintings and so forth are mainly meant as recruitment tools. The media loves to cover that, as they can be displayed as annoying protestors, but they also do not seriously disrupt the status quo. The terrorist comparisons then turn some more moderate activists more radical, which these organizations then can recruite.
However they then target fossil fuel infrastructure. Just Stop Oil did shut down oil refineries, there have been protests shuting down German lignite plants, in Australia they managed to disrupt a coal port for week and there are many other examples. This hurts fossil fuel companies in the bank account, which is their weak point. So they absolutly hate them.
these are hardly recruitment tools. Nonviolent protests have been targeting lignite mines long before and had more supporters than people glueing themselves to the street.
It is the other way around in terms of “radicalization” although thos term is hardly fitting as demanding the government to uphold its own laws and international commitments can hardly be radical. Meanwhile the governments radicalized extremely, both in their language and now in their often criminal infringement of the protestors rights.
Threats to Germany’s climate campaigners fuelled by politicians’ rhetoric, says activist
Senior politicians in Germany have compared Last Generation, a nonviolent protest group that has blockaded motorways and thrown paint on glass-covered artworks, to terrorist organisations such as the Red Army Faction, a far-left group that killed dozens of people in the 1970s and 80s. Earlier this year, in tweets that have since been deleted, politicians from the centre-left and centre-right parties drew links between Last Generation and the Taliban.
The chancellor, Olaf Scholz, who has described the protests as “completely idiotic”, appeared to compare climate activists to Nazis last year after two people disrupted a panel at which he was speaking in Stuttgart. “Let me say frankly, these black-clad spectacles at different events, always by the same people, remind me of a time that lies long in the past – and thank God for that,” he said, to loud applause.
the German center left and center right parties are both proto fascist. The center left party SPD of chancellor Scholz is spearheading autocratic policies like total surveillance. The former minister of justice from the SPD wanted to pass a law that forces websites to save passwords in clear text, so police could access any accounts quickly and without notice to the surveilled person. Of course this would also allow police to stage entire crimes and blame it on the people whose accounts theyd take over.
The center right party CDU is trying to help the fascist AfD into power, by taking over their talking points, fabricating a migration crisis and spread disinformation such as the refugees getting new teeth while Germans wouldnt get dentist appointments. They also target scientists in particular climate scientist and try to undermine the trust in research and evidence, as it contradicts their shortsighted economic and social demands.
Add that to the far left party in large parts having similar positions as the far right, no wonder Fascists are on the rise. They get support from almost everyone except the Greens and the Pirate Party.
How to antagonize and radicalize peaceful protestors 101. If I didn’t know better (that Scholz doesn’t understand how people work), I would say he was trying to get people to start putting bombs under SUVs.
in the UK I cannot wait until we’re able to vote out the Tories and especially rishi sunak who we never voted in the first place. Any party would be better than them at this point.
Reminder for the UK people we are not America you don’t vote for a PM you vote for a local MP so remember kids don’t vote Tory even if you like the one who knocked on your door that time :D
“I can’t wait to vote for a local labour MP who will represent my interests because I like and trust them as a person, I like the pledges they are making and their intentions of they are pretty of a government, and I would like them to help get enough MPs for Kier Starmer to form a government.” is what the poster should have said.
The Tories capturing the red wall was because of people voting for Boris / against Corbyn (which Boris claims was solely a vote for Brexit). Because of that a ridiculous number of incredibly low quality candidates got into Parliament. Our representatives need to represent us, not just be a colored dot on a map showing a majority for one party or the other.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Human rights experts and campaigners have warned against an intensifying crackdown on climate protests across Europe, as Guardian research found countries across the continent using repressive measures to silence activists.
Catrinel Motoc, the organisation’s senior campaigner on civil space and right to protest in Europe, said: “People all around the world are bravely raising their voices to call for urgent actions on the climate crisis but many face dire consequences for their peaceful activism.
Les Soulévements de la Terre, a collective of local environmental campaigns, had staged a series of protests, with tactics including sabotage, that ended with violent confrontations with police, and Darmanin denouncing the activists as “far left” and “ecoterrorists”.
The Digos police unit, which specialises in counter-terrorism, in April justified the use of anti-Mafia laws to target the group by saying its civil disobedience actions had not taken place spontaneously, but were organised, discussed and weighed up by an internal hierarchy.
“These one-off bans, of which there are very few in absolute terms, are not imposed because of the reason for the demonstration.”The Italian interior ministry referred to a statement from the culture minister Gennaro Sangiuliano in April, who said attacks on monuments cause economic damage to the community that is is expensive to clean up.
The Bavarian interior ministry referred the Guardian to the public prosecutor’s office in Munich, which provided a statement from June in which it confirmed it had authorised the tapping of phones for six of seven Last Generation members under criminal investigation.
The original article contains 1,251 words, the summary contains 250 words. Saved 80%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
Marcus Decker and Morgan Trowland didn’t slow-walk in front of a line of cars for a few minutes. They shut down a major bridge for 41 hours, causing massive gridlock, impeding emergency services, and impacting hundreds of thousands of people.
Their 3-year sentences are a pinprick relative to the degree of harm they inflicted on the public at large.
Oh no. People were inconvenienced for a couple of days. The absolute horror. We obviously have to severely violate those scoundrels for several years.
Meanwhile oil executives have been actively working towards destroying all human life on the planet for decades without consequence.
You do realize some people need to get to hospitals , need to have access for treatment, get their kids, you know actual important things. “Inconvienenced for a couple days… the absolute horror” is a crazy take. Why don’t they target the people that are actually causing the problems? Instead they target everyday citizens By doing stuff like this they actually are causing people to hate them and causing infinite more damage to the cause.
I agree with most of your comment, except for this:
Why don’t they target the people that are actually causing the problems?
For one, they do. But it gets much less coverage, so it may well be you never heard of such an action. Media rather reports on stories which affect many people, and more importantly, which are likely to generate outrage, clicks and shares.
Another reason is, it’s much harder. To block a public bridge is much easier than preventing high ranking officials to get from A to B. In case of the bridge, all the information is openly available. You can even visit the location in preparation, no one will bother you. If you instead want to block a minister from entering a building, there is likely more than one way, and security in place to keep you out but allow them free passage.
Finally, resources are limited. An acivist group likely has no more than a few dozen people available, often less than a dozen. There’s always more to do, and never enough volunteers to help out. So you naturally have to work efficiently, especially with costly activities which might get people detained for prolonged periods.
What good is it if you block a CEO from using his private jet, but end up in prison for months, and no one notices anyways because the news don’t cover your story, and the CEO only got delayed for 10 minutes anyways because he can use the back entrance? Yes, you could also block the back entrance, but then you need more people for the same goal.
We can complain how it is unfair to hold the public hostage. But this seems to be the only kind of action which consistently gets good coverage, and forces a reaction (unlike demonstrations which can just be ignored, and thus are), with the available means.
Still I lost hope this approach works as intended. I think the strategy depended on the public to solidarize with the activists, due to their just cause and the urgency of the situation. Instead, many people (or is their number an exaggeration of the media?) solidarize with the state removing the obstruction by violent means.
This whole episode could be long over if people demanded their leaders to do what’s necessary. Instead, the people “chose” to condone their lack of action. Climate activists have no where to go though. It’s not a sport or leisure activity, after all. Changing for less efficient methods or to step down is not an option.
Another reason is, it’s much harder.
It’s easier to steal a bike than to buy a bike. The difficulty of the task is wholly irrelevant as to its justification.
This was an explanation (in response to someone asking “Why?”), not necessarily a justification.
Apart from that, there are situations when we condone acts which are not justifiable in other situations. In case of emergency, break glass.
Please hold our governments to the same standard. Just because it’s hard to decarbonize is no justification to not do it.
If they had targeted oil executives, I would be considerably more sympathetic. Eat the rich. Tax them into submission. Hell, you can throw them all in jail or a woodchipper, and I won’t be shedding any tears.
But they didn’t target oil executives. They deliberately interfered with the human rights of the general public, specifically, the right to travel. That’s one of the most important rights we have. The freedom to travel underpins virtually all other freedoms, rights and privileges.
As it is, their sentences seem rather light to me. If “impeding travel” is nothing more than a minor inconvenience, then a suitable consequence would be to “impede” their “travel” for a time commensurate with the time they wasted. Lock them up. Except that the person-hours they wasted greatly exceeds the remainder of their expected lifespan. Wasting that much time is a rather serious issue, whether it belongs to an individual, or a large group.
3 years is a graciously lenient consequence for the degree of harm these gentlemen deliberately inflicted on the general public.
Surely, if they went out and harassed all of the individuals they impeded, one at a time instead of concurrently, they would deserve and receive a much sterner cumulative sentence than merely 3 years imprisonment. They are getting a massive discount on the amount of attention they stole.
How would you target an oil executive with the resources available to the group who blocked that bridge?
The willingness of your activists to do certain things is a resource, so don’t freely assume here.
Maybe pull their little stunt somewhere in the vicinity of an oil executive? Maybe sabotage an oil well, or a pipeline? Maybe drive a bulldozer through their head office or their own home. I don’t particularly care how they do it, so long as they target the right people for harassment. The general public is not that.
See, all these things are harder, riskier, more violent, more punished. You freely assumed what you probably don’t have available.
It is easier for a soldier to fight a child, pregnant woman, or elderly civilian in an enemy’s country than it is to fight an enemy soldier. Fighting the enemy combatant will always be harder, riskier, more violent, and more punished than fighting the non-combatant. But fuck you with a rusty bayonet if you think the difficulty of fighting the soldier justifies targeting the civilian.
I utterly reject the relevance of your argument. Frankly, I am disgusted and deeply offended by your “It’s too hard” argument.
If you insist on subscribing to that argument, then I would respond that “making it harder, riskier, more violent, and more punished” for you is justified. If your justification for attacking the public is that “it’s easier”, the public is also justified in responding with any level of force necessary to convince you it’s not easier.
Breathe. What a violent comment!
Comparing nonviolent protestors to armed soldiers fighting vulnerable people is wild. With all due respect, I think you lost perspective.
I’m not interested in continuing this conversation, also because I feel you’re projecting violent things into my words.
It apparently wasn’t the first time they’ve been in trouble with the law over this, and they apparently didn’t stop then:
Trowland has six previous convictions relating to protests, while Decker has one, with lawyers for the pair previously saying they would not take part in further disruptive protests.
In the US, and I assume the UK, typically sentences for first-time offenders are lighter, on the assumption that the person may be deterred. In this case, though, the two didn’t stop after earlier convictions.
Honestly, the larger punishment is probably this:
The environmental campaign group said Decker, a German citizen who it said has leave to remain in the UK, faces deportation after serving his sentence.
It’s not clear to me whether that’s temporary or permanent residency, but if he loses a right of permanent residency over that, I doubt that he’d ever be able to reacquire it, and that’ll probably impact him.
deleted by creator
Travel is a human right. Impeding travel is a human rights violation. Get the hell out of the road.
Nobody is taking away your freedom. They are just producing traffic, as does an accident. You can still travel. Having a car and a road to drive by car definitely not a human right.
Travel is a human right.
Having the use of your own carand the use of the public thoroughfare to drive it in is a civil right. (Edit: I misspoke. The right to own property is considered a human right under Article 17. Denying the use of a car except by legal fiat is considered a human rights violation, not a civil rights violation.)Impeding traffic is a violation of civil and human rights.
I am willing to argue this here. I am not willing to argue it on the street. On the street, I will respond to such a violation with any necessary level of force to end that violation.
Get the hell out of the road.
I’m sooooooo super ready to mow down some climate protestors daddy oil company, pick meeeeeeee
Right? What a violent jackass.
deleted by creator
You don’t stop owning your car if someone is sitting in front of it, therefore your property rights aren’t violated.
You don’t stop owning your house if someone stops you from entering it, but you are still deprived of the functional use of your property. Your property rights are absolutely violated when someone stops you from using your property. Until “driving a car” is made illegal, impeding a driver violates the driver’s property rights.
please point me to where this is stated in the human rights declarations. Also please point me further to where it is specified that this goes for travel by car specifically. I want to sue the government to give me my human right of traveling by car, so they first need to buy me a car.
please point me to where this is stated in the human rights declaration
Article 9. No one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention or exile.
Impeding travel constitutes an arbitrary detention.
Article 12. No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence.
Impeding travel constitutes interference in correspondence.
Article 13. Everyone has the right to freedom of movement and residence within the borders of each state.
Impeding travel denies freedom of movement.
Also please point me further to where it is specified that this goes for travel by car specifically.
Article 17. Everyone has the right to own property alone as well as in association with others. No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his property.
Impeding travel by car constitutes a deprivation of property.
Articles 23, 24, 25, 26, and 27 protect the rights to engage in work, rest, health, education, and cultural activities.
Impeding travel infringes on any or all of these five, depending on the purpose of travel.
Article 29. Everyone shall be subject only to such limitations as are determined by law solely for the purpose of securing due recognition and respect for the rights and freedoms of others
Impeding travel imposed unnecessary limitations, and ignores and disrespects the rights and freedoms of others.
I want to sue the government to give me my human right of traveling by car,
The government does not “give” human rights. You have that right, by virtue of being human. The government is not stopping you from owning a car or traveling by car: these orange-jacketed terrorists are the ones doing that.
Everyone has the right to freedom of movement
You are always free to move, you can get out of the car and walk to another place.
The right is to travel, not to “walk”. Your power to limit my freedom of movement is strictly limited under Article 29: you can only do so by enacting law. Without a specific law creating the limitation (such as “don’t drive on a sidewalk”) you may not arbitrarily decide what modes and methods of travel are acceptable, nor what modes and methods may be infringed upon.
Further, your arbitrary assumption that I am capable of walking specifically violates Article 2, Article 7, and Article 25. Your insinuation that I am only entitled to travel within a reasonable “walking” distance violates one or more of Articles 23 through 27.
You must be fun at parties. If you even get to them when the streets are blocked…
Parties? You mean peaceful assemblies and associations, protected under Article 20? Or cultural life, protected under Article 27? Yes, impeding travel to a party is also a human rights violation.
FYI: Your knowledge about U.S. law is really not the flex you think it is.
Clown says what?
Clown says whatever the hell he wants (Article 19) so long as in exercising that freedom, he does not infringe on the rights and freedoms of others. (Articles 29 and 30).
